A 30-year-old Florida man is facing up to a half-decade in federal prison after confessing to posting violent threats on social media that promised to decapitate Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, murder her “monkey children,” then eat the kids “for protein,” according to plea agreement papers reviewed by The Independent.
Myles M. McQuade, a Tampa resident, made the threats on X, the Elon Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter, one day after Omar criticized late right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk in an interview with a progressive news outlet. Her remarks sparked Republican outrage, leading to GOP legislators insisting Omar be stripped of her committee assignments.
“Go back to Somalia before its [sic] too late,” McQuade warned in one post, which is reproduced in his December 2 plea.
In another, McQuade addressed Omar as “you dirty subhuman [N-word].”
In both instances, McQuade’s plea, which was added to the public docket on December 4, says that the threat to kill Omar was “intended… to be a true threat of violence,” and that he “recognized that it would be viewed as a true threat of violence… not idle talk, a careless remark, or something said jokingly.”
McQuade is an account executive at a tech company, according to his LinkedIn profile. The charges against him have not been previously reported.
Omar’s family fled war-torn Somalia when Omar was a child. They were granted asylum in 1995, and Omar became a U.S. citizen five years later, at the age of 17. The 43-year-old legislator, who has represented Minnesota’s 5th congressional district since 2019, is the first Somali-American member of Congress, and one of two Muslim women presently serving.
A member of “The Squad,” a group of far-left-leaning Democratic lawmakers, Omar has faced ongoing death threats from the MAGA faithful amid years of vitriolic attacks by President Trump, who last week during a televised cabinet meeting described Omar and her fellow Somali-Americans as “garbage,” and called for Omar to be “thrown the hell out of our country.”
“Those Somalians should be out of here,” Trump ranted, using an incorrect term for Somalis. “They’ve destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her – she’s always talking about ‘the constitution provides me with uhhhh,’” he continued, referring to Omar.
“Go back to your own country and figure out your constitution. All she does is complain about this country and without this country she would not be in very good shape. She probably wouldn’t be alive right now.”
In October, Omar told NBC News that she feared for her life due to a sharp spike in threats over her criticisms of Israel. GOP leaders did nothing to push back against the “toxic language” being used by party members, refusing to “hold extremists in their ranks accountable,” she said, noting that this kind of behavior in fact has “real-world consequences.”
“Since assuming office, two men have pleaded guilty to threatening to kill me,” Omar told the outlet. “This is very real. I fear for my children and have to speak to them about remaining vigilant because you just never know.”
On Sept. 11, Omar sat for an interview with Zeteo, during which she expressed concern that conservatives had “weaponized” the fatal September 10 shooting of Charlie Kirk to attack the left. While emphasizing that Kirk’s death was in fact tragic, Omar said those on the right had recast Kirk wrongly as a unifying presence, rather than a divisive figure who last year demanded she be deported.
“There are a lot of people who are out there talking about him [Kirk] just wanting to have a civil debate,” Omar told host Mehdi Hasan. “These people are full of s**t, and it’s important for us to call them out while we feel anger and sadness.”
At 12:33 a.m. on September 12, McQuade – who was vacationing in Orlando, according to his plea papers – logged onto X and posted a message aimed at a target identified in court documents as “U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN 1.”
“[U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN 1] I’m going to kill you, you dirty subhuman [N-word] and I’ll eat your monkey children for protein,” the post read. “Go back to Somalia before its [sic] too late.”
Eight minutes after that, McQuade followed up with a second X message, according to the plea documents.
“[N-word]. When this country falls I’m going to kill your children in front of you then cut your head off,” the post read.
McQuade’s plea bargain says he was “motivated by U.S. CONGRESSWOMAN 1’s status as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and her official actions.”
As is customary for the Department of Justice, the filing does not include the victim’s name. However, the language used in court filings, in addition to McQuade’s messages, make clear she was the target. (Omar’s office did not respond to a request for comment; a Department of Justice spokesperson declined to share any additional detail.)
Shortly before 8 a.m. that morning, the U.S. Capitol Police “received a report of these threats… and began investigating,” the plea papers say. A team of Capitol Police special agents showed up at McQuade’s apartment that evening, in an attempt to question him, but he was out of town, the plea goes on.
“The agents attempted to contact McQuade by phone, but when they identified themselves, he disconnected the call,” it states.
The agents returned to McQuade’s apartment on Sept. 14, and “attempted an interview,” according to the plea, which does not provide further specifics.
Prosecutors charged McQuade in a bill of information filed December 2. He pleaded guilty the same day to one count of transmitting an interstate threat to injure.
The charge carries a maximum of five years behind bars, a $250,000 fine, and up to three years of supervised release.
Seamus Hughes, a senior research faculty member at University of Nebraska Omaha’s National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, and an expert on violent extremism, is seeing more and more people like McQuade crossing his professional radar.
“With three weeks still to go, 2025 continues its record of the most federal arrests involving threats to public officials in at least a decade,” Hughes told The Independent. “The violent rhetoric touches on all levels of public service, be it the local election official, to a Minnesota congresswoman, to the president of the United States – the connective glue being a rising and concerning subset of Americans who see threatening murder as an acceptable outlet to express their political disagreements. It never is, it never should be, and hopefully… it never will be.”
McQuade is set to appear for a hearing in Tampa federal court on December 22.
Defense attorney Andrew Searle, who is representing McQuade, did not respond on Monday to a request for comment.
